Grok Bot for creators: six read-only Bots that watch an X audience

You can give Grok Bot the dull half of growing an audience on X: finding the replies you missed, the people worth a shoutout and the old posts worth bringing back, while you keep every public move for yourself. This playbook follows one AI video artist who set up six read-only Bots for his content business over the weekend, explains how his Rerun Picker decides an old post is due, and gives you a copyable starter. It fits creators, social and community managers, and founders who run their own account. It is one person's setup, two days old, and he hasn't reported results yet. Every number here is his claim unless we say it's ours.

Not tested: we haven't run his six Bots. We did check one piece, described under Gotchas: Grok Bot's built-in X reads return view counts for posts.

Who runs it#

The setup belongs to Glenn Williams (@GlennHasABeard), whose bio reads "Video art made with generative AI." On Sunday, Oct 18 at 5:39 PM ET he posted it: "I upgraded my plan for one reason. @grok @bot connects straight to the X API. This weekend I set up six bots for my content business. Claude wrote the scripts and Grok Bot runs them on a schedule."

Disclosure: his bio lists "@AdobeFirefly Ambassador, @topazlabs Creative Partner, @runwayml Affiliate" and "Open for brand work." None of those are SpaceXAI or Cursor, and the post doesn't promote a product.

What marketing uses it for#

The rule comes first: "None of them post, reply, like or follow for me. They read and report, and I do the rest by hand." Asked how he gets the Bots to post, he replied "I don't want it to post on my behalf". The six, in his words:

1. Headcount. "Once a quarter it scans my followers and the accounts I follow. It flags fake and inactive accounts, logs who unfollowed, and tracks how long I've been waiting on a follow back."
2. Creator Scout. "Every morning, a list of verified AI artists near my size that I don't follow yet."
3. Shoutout Desk. "Every Monday, 10 small mutuals posting AI or traditional art who have never had a shoutout from me. It keeps the full history so nobody gets repeated."
4. Mention Radar. "Twice a day, every reply and quote I haven't answered yet. Verified mutuals first."
5. Warm Leads. "Verified accounts that keep engaging with my posts but don't follow me." He gives no schedule for this one.
6. Rerun Picker. "My best older posts that are due for a quote post, each with a fresh angle to go with it."

He puts the cost at "All six together run about $30 a month in API credits." The outputs land on a page he controls: "so far my morning routines have gone off perfectly. I have it build a private cloudflate page for me with all the outputs" (reply, Oct 19, 7:20 AM ET).

How Rerun Picker decides#

When a reader asked how it picks an old post, he explained: "It compares each post's views to my typical views from the same month, so an old hit isn't judged against today's bigger numbers. Anything at 1.5x my normal or better qualifies, as long as it's at least 3 weeks old. Anything I've quoted in the last 60 days sits out. Top 10 every Monday, and Grok writes a fresh angle for each one."

Our read: comparing a post to its own month matters for any account that is growing. A post with 2,000 views in a month when 1,000 was normal was a real hit, even if a weak post today beats it. A plain list of most-viewed posts would only ever surface recent ones.

Why it matters at work#

Our read: audience work on X is mostly checking. Who replied, who keeps engaging, who you haven't thanked, which old post still has legs. Those checks are where time goes, and they're easy to skip. His split hands the checking to scheduled Bots and leaves the judgment and the public voice with him, which is the part a brand or a client cares about. The same six jobs map onto a company account: unanswered mentions for support, warm leads for sales, shoutouts and creator scouting for partnerships, reruns for content. He hasn't said how much time it saves or what it has changed yet.

Set it up#

These steps are ours, built from his posts and the docs. He hasn't published his scripts or prompts. He said he "might share them once the bugs are ironed out."

1. Pick one job, not six. Cursor's docs say to create "a separate Bot when the work has a distinct goal, set of tools, working style, approval boundary, or recurring schedule" (docs). Rerun Picker is the easiest first Bot, because it only reads your own posts and their views.
2. Decide what it can read. Per the docs, "Bots can search and read what's public on X without you connecting an X account," including "an account's posts and mentions" and "who quoted or reposted a post." That access "is read-only and doesn't sign in as you." For "your DMs, bookmarks, home timeline, or who liked your posts," you add the X plugin and sign in with X.
3. Write the read-only rule into the job. Say in the first message that the Bot never posts, replies, likes, follows or sends messages.
4. Keep the history in a file. Shoutout Desk and Rerun Picker both depend on what you did before. The docs say "Memory is not a substitute for an authoritative source" (docs), so give the Bot a log file it reads and updates.
5. Make it a routine and test it. "A new routine waits for its next scheduled time," and "A test does real work" (routines help). For a read-only job, a test is a safe way to see the first report today.

Prompt (ours, untested), based on his Rerun Picker rules:

Set up a routine for every Monday at 9:00 AM [your time zone]. This job is read-only: never post, reply, like, repost, follow or message anyone on X. Each run: read my own X posts (@[handle]) from the last [12] months with their view counts. For each calendar month, take my typical views as the median views of my posts that month. A post qualifies when its views are at least 1.5 times its month's typical views and it is at least 3 weeks old. Skip any post I quoted in the last 60 days, using the log file [folder]/rerun-log.csv (post link, date I quoted it). Rank the rest by how far each one beat its month and give me the top 10, each with its link, date, views next to the month's typical views, and one fresh angle for a quote post in under 25 words. When I tell you which ones I quoted, add them to the log. If you can't read the views for a post, list it under couldn't check instead of guessing.

The 1.5x bar, the 3 weeks, the 60 days, the top 10 on Mondays and the fresh angle are his. Using the median for "typical", the log file, the 12 months and the couldn't check rule are ours.

Gotchas#

• Our check: view counts are readable. The Daily Bot runs on a Grok Bot. On Oct 19 at about 12:24 PM ET its built-in X reads returned a view count with each post, for example 1,375 views on his Oct 18 post. That is the number Rerun Picker needs. Our read: Headcount, Creator Scout, Warm Leads and Mention Radar's mutuals-first sort need follower lists or engagement data, and the docs don't list those among the built-in reads.
• Follower scans cost real money on the X API. X's pricing page lists "Following/Followers: Read" at "$0.010 per resource" and "Posts: Read" at "$0.005 per resource." Our math: one pass over his 6,411 followers (his profile count on Oct 19) is about $64 in follower reads alone, before the accounts he follows. Add the 3,342 accounts he follows and a quarterly Headcount is about $97, or roughly $32 a month on its own, which is more than his whole "$30 a month" for six Bots. So either his Bots read less than a full pass or some reads go through Grok Bot's built-in X access; he doesn't say. Count your followers before you schedule a Headcount, and keep it rare, as he does.
• It is brand new. He wrote that the Bots are "still learning what a Share Your Art post looks like," and his test is blunt: "If it starts lying to me and making up information like Grok typically does I'm canceling outright" (reply). Check a few reports by hand before you trust the lists.
• Twice a day adds up. "Each run spends usage, so a routine that runs often spends more than one that runs rarely" (routines help). He keeps the jobs light. In a reply he wrote "I'm not using it for anything heavy. Other than the API access, I find Grok to be useless."
• The private page needs its own setup. He has the Bot "build a private cloudflate page," which we read as Cloudflare. He doesn't say how it's built or locked down, so treat that part as your own project.

What to watch#

• Results. He said "I will definitely be making updates". Watch for what the lists turned up and whether Mention Radar and Shoutout Desk changed how he spends his time.
• The scripts. If he shares them, we'll add the real setup here.
• The cost. His $30 a month covers API credits for six Bots. Watch whether it holds once Headcount runs on his full follower list.

Related#

• Turn built-in X search into a daily product feedback watch
• Grok Bot for marketing: spend watches, reporting asks, and competitor briefs
• Grok Bot for marketing: an SEO and AEO desk that mines topics and holds every draft
• Make Grok Bot routines stay quiet when nothing changed

Sources#

• @GlennHasABeard on X, Oct 18: six read-and-report Bots
• @GlennHasABeard on X, Oct 18: how Rerun Picker chooses posts
• @GlennHasABeard on X, Oct 19: morning routines and the private page
• @GlennHasABeard on X, Oct 18: he doesn't want it posting for him
• @GlennHasABeard on X, Oct 19: not using it for anything heavy
• @GlennHasABeard on X, Oct 19: the condition for keeping it
• @GlennHasABeard on X, Oct 19: he plans to post updates
• @GlennHasABeard on X: profile and bio
• Grok Bot docs: Computer and apps (Search and read X)
• Cursor Help Center: Routines
• Cursor Docs: Work with Grok Bot
• X API docs: Pay-per-usage pricing and credits